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This book discusses emerging technologies in distance learning. One of the keys points covered in this book is the roll of social networking in distributing knowledge. This covers Moodle, wikis, and web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and twitter. This book is mainly theoretical in nature.

This book would be a great resource for many classrooms. I enjoyed looking at some of the parts to find out more. It is good to have many ideas to use in the classroom in case some of the ideas crash. This has so many to use which gives us many options.

Connections and communication are key with emerging technology, including social media and other teaching tools.

Great article about connectivism and creating learning communities. I enjoyed the the final quote..."We participate, therefore we are". Great stuff.

Todd, This article does a good job relating the theory of connectivism and the actual development of learning communities. I particularly liked the statement, "The relationship between work experience, communal learning, and knowledge is at the heart of connectivism - as is expressed in 'connectivity'". It's perfect summary of what the author is trying to say.

This article compares the real application of MOOC to the theory of connectivity and how it is meant to work.

This article proposes that connectivism should not be considered a learning theory, and that it only is given so much attention because of the role it plays in the emerging area of MOOCs. The author looks at theories available to educators that can be valuable in modern education.

The article discusses connectivism and its use in MOOCs and the detractors of the learning theory. There are two definitions of connectivism - one as the learning theory and one that critics of the concept would prefer. The article also includes several scenarios that explain ways that instructors can use connectivism in their classrooms, if they have access to the different required resources.

This was an interesting article to read and to contemplate their arguments on whether connectivism is a theory or not.

In this article, the authors explore how PLEs, social media, and self regulated connect. Also introduces a pedagogical framework to for social media to support self-regulated learning

This article discusses how the use of formal and informal education can mesh. It talks about the importance of self-regulation in terms of connection to social media and how it can impact learning. It gives examples of how different media can be used in learning and enhance the PLN.

This paper is most useful for the discussion of how social media can help students develop self regulated learning skills in a PLE. A useful table is near the end of the article showing how teaches can use social media at 3 different levels of complexity for knowledge management.

This article gives a brief overview of PLNs but then gives tips on developing your own.

The author provides tips for educators to network and grow their PLNs. He likes to ask educators to consider the following questions:Who is in your learning network? Who do you learn from on a regular basis? Who do you turn to for your own professional development? He provides some great ideas to expand your learning base.

As I begin to develop a PLN, reflecting on these three questions will be helpful. Including suggestions to expanding the network are equally helpful.

The power of connected learning expands the classroom to infinity and beyond, but students still need a teacher's guidance.

The power of connected learning expands the classroom to infinity and beyond, but students still need a teacher's guidance.

This website is monitored by edublogs and geared towards teachers who are wanting to create professional learning networks. Step 1 provides a detailed examination of what a pln is, which includes videos, images, and other media to convey content. From this page teachers can move forward in creating their own pln.

Great share Courtney! I love the videos explaining what a PLN is (very simple and to the point). The video about connected educators is one I want to share with my district on my proposal to get social media active. It discusses why educators need a PLN and how beneficial it can be!

A PLN is personal because you choose who is in your group and if you want to lurk or comment. A PLN is what you want when you want it- reminds me of the Burger King slogan- "your way right away"

Personal Learning Networks are nothing new, they have been around since the beginning of civilization. This article highlights how communication technology enables the expansion of your learning networks without going into overload.

This is an excellent guide for someone seeking to create and develop his or her PLN. In addition to development tips, the article provides management strategies that could be useful for someone planning a PLN.

This article describes the three main types of personal learning networks: (1) Personally maintained synchronous connections; (2) Personally and socially maintained semi-synchronous connections; and (3) Dynamically maintained asynchronous connections. The importance of social media in a PLN and lifelong learning are stressed in the article. It also give tips on how to create and manage your own personal learning network.

A brief but excellent look at the need for PLN in school.  Give a good description of why teacher's need to be involved as students develop their existing PLN's and why they need to develop their own.

Everyone's network is going to look different. It is more of a process than just being in a room with those you interact with every day. It is an independent function that you need to engage in! We have to create our own PLN so that we can connect with our students who already have one.

Everyone's network is going to look different. It is more of a process than just being in a room with those you interact with every day. It is an independent function that you need to engage in! We have to create our own PLN so that we can connect with our students who already have one.

This article explains why communities of practice are so important for the business realm. In one statement it explained that companies have now figured out that "knowledge = power, so share and it multiplies". This idea is synonymous with connectivism and the idea that in order to gain more knowledge more connections must be made through sharing, collaborating, creating, etc. This article also made the distinction between tacit knowledge that is rooted in people's life experiences with explicit knowledge that is deliberately shared outside of people. This distinction also helped me to really see the reason why connectivism, PLNs and CoPs work so well together. You have a group of people, connected by common interests and goals, that are expanding upon their knowledge by sharing their own collective experiences and goals in effort to connect with others that can share insight, collaborate with and add to their ideas, solutions and questions.

Allee uses the term organizational intelligence to describe how CoPs are becoming more prevalent in the modern workforce. He talks about how he has consulted with various multinational companies to help them create CoPs and to get employees at various levels to share their expertise.

This video uses a great metaphor of Rhizomes for learning. It is described as an uncontrollable pattern. It asserts that learning needs to make connections outside of the normal entities. For instance, there have been biology studies that have reached over into the realm of engineering. Although these are two separate subjects, it increases more lines of connection and hence more knowledge. This video also describes the ecology of learning and that connectivism acts as a tool that will continually adapt, change and move along with the flow of information.

A mostly visual representation to explore connectivism as it occurs through an open learning system. Points brought up include learners making meaningful choices while exploring their personal interest in order to guide learning. And as participants engage in making connections, a natural result will be content development and eventually those more experienced students becoming mentors.

Great video that has a section about how our students are "different" than when we were in school. "They [Students] expect to learn from technology because that is what they are used to." As soon as ALL teachers realize and accept this fact, then we as teachers can be one step closer to helping our students achieve their FULL potential!

I like the idea of learners making meaningful choices. Anything that can guide students to make effective and relevant connections is a great resource. I also think teachers have a lot to learn about the way our students learn these days. The idea that students actually need to be a force in their own learning and that they expect instant gratification are concepts I have been seeing more frequently in my own classroom. Great resource!

Discussion by one of the founders of connectivism, Stephen Downes. A thorough explanation of some cautions to be heeded by individuals within a network, like resisting the pull to jump to conclusions. Groups should be connected but not cave to any assumptions as those will naturally ebb and flow. Part of that flexibility is staying open to a diverse community in order to be open to information.

The idea of interpretation is to compile our own knowledge, not directly, but by how we gauge what is happening. Emergence is the result of this interpretation, but is not always correct! Social knowledge comes out of what we can term a community of practice. An example is given of the price of wheat being dependent upon the many wheat buyers that are part of that community.

This blog post describes the relationship between Lev Vygotsky's idea of the zone of proximal development and Jerome Bruner's concept of scaffolding. The practical applications of connectivism and PLNs are not explored much in this post, but the theoretical connections are valuable.

Hi Jamie, I am a huge fan of the zone of proximal development. I think the application with PLNs is such an interesting concept. I am glad that you connected the theory to the practice. Thanks for sharing.

This paper, by Ana Maria Marhan examines connectivism and social media. The author points out that because today's learning is a "messy, nebulous, informal, chaotic process, we need to rethink how we design our instruction. This hit home because I just moved to a new state and a new district, and they are very strict with, well, just about everything on the computer! I teach at a Title 1 high school, and these kids would truly benefit from instruction that wasn't so linear. These learners (like all learners) form their own pathways of knowledge, and I believe I could make a stronger impact on them if I could use more tools.

Marhan, A. M. (2006). Connectivism: Concepts and Principles for emerging Learning Networks. In The 1 st Conference on Virtual Learning. In this article author, Ana-Maria Marhan does a good job exploring the principals pushing forward Connectivism as a pedagogical helper. This becomes apparent right from her abstract "Connectivism views learning as a network creation process, and looks at how we might provide 'learning ecologies' to meet the learners' needs.". In her first section, she defines learning as "a persisting change in human performance or performance potential which must come about as a result of the learner's experience and interaction with the world." As soon as I read the last few words "interaction with the world", I began to connect the dots (no pun intended) to what I've read thus far about communities of practice. She spreads out on a handful of relevant and interesting subtopics to the overall theme of Connectivism. After she describes more about the new connected and growing world we live in she tackles the basics of Connectivism as a theory of learning and the principals behind it. Again like other articles she echoes many of the same sentiments George Siemens made when he originally proposed the learning theory. After the background on Siemens theory, she begins to draw everything together. One statement that I enjoyed was "Individual is the starting point of Connectivism: personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into communities, organizations or institutions, which in turn feed back into the network and then continue to provide learning to individual". She does a great job of supporting the use of technology not as the new power of learning but as a tool to unlock that power. "When knowledge, however, is needed but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill".

I also appreciate how Marhan suggests that connected learning is cyclical: "Individual is the starting point of Connectivism: personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into communities, organizations or institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual."

This article reports a study of a community of practice that was focused on...developing communities of practice! Excellent exploration of the factors that influenced participation levels in this CoP, including: emotion, technology, and connectivity. The authors conclude that online learning communities succeed on the basis of the level of investment of the members.

This article reports a study of a community of practice that was focused on...developing communities of practice! Excellent exploration of the factors that influenced participation levels in this CoP, including: emotion, technology, and connectivity. The authors conclude that online learning communities succeed on the basis of the level of investment of the members.

The author suggests that learning is a process of connecting information sources. What better place to connect information than online, where a world of information is at our fingertips. The author discusses Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, social networking, and virtual gaming environments to name a few) and how they've impacted learning and helped to shape the idea of connectivism.

The author suggests that the foundation for connectivity is constructivism. The learner becomes the center of the of the learning process; rather than the dissemination of knowledge. The author further discusses the need for educators to adopt multiple methods of teaching in order to be effective in reaching the most students. Lastly, the author suggests that learning takes place in a collaborative and cooperative environment,